Big Era Five Patterns of Interregional Unity 300-1500 CE Closeup Teaching Unit 5.5.1 Coping with Catastrophe The Black Death of the Fourteenth Century Table of Contents A Teaching Unit of the National Center for History in the Schools 2 Why this unit? 2 Unit objectives 2 Time and materials 3 Authors 3 The historical context 3 Table of dates 7 This unit in the Big Era timeline 10 Dramatic moment 11 Lesson 1: No Escape from Death: The Catastrophic Plague Arrives 13 Lesson 2: Trying to Cope: Explanations and Counter-measures 23 Lesson 3: The Impact on Society 40 Unit summary discussion questions and activities 49 This unit and the Three Essential Questions 50 This unit and the Seven Key Themes 50 This unit and the Standards in Historical Thinking 50 Resources 51 Correlations to National and State Standards 53 Conceptual links to other teaching units 54 World History for Us All A project of San Diego State University In collaboration with the National Center for History in the Schools (UCLA) http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu/ World History for Us All Big Era 5 Closeup 5.5.1 A Teaching Unit of the National Center for History in the Schools his teaching unit is an adapted version of Coping with Catastrophe: The TBlack Death of the Fourteenth Century, A Unit of Study for Grades 7-12 published by the National Center for History in the Schools, University of California, Los Angeles. This teaching unit may not be resold or redistributed. Print copies of this and other units may be ordered at http://nchs.ucla.edu. Why this unit? his unit deals with the causes, characteristics, transmission, and social consequences of the TBlack Death of the mid-fourteenth century in the geographical context of Afroeurasia. Through study of primary source documents, students will consider how the mindsets of people who faced a horrifying crisis nearly 700 years ago were similar to or different from those of people today. Exploring a case of catastrophic population decline, they will investigate the importance of demographic (population) change as a historical theme. They will grapple with the problem of how to assess the historical significance of a key event in world history. Teachers may present this unit in a number of classroom contexts: • An example of a historical process that cut across political and cultural boundaries and that had significance for Afroeurasia as a whole. • A case study of the influence of the environment on human history. • Part of a general study of the medieval period. • A basis for comparison with other demographic crises of major significance, for example, the calamitous decline of American Indian populations in the sixteenth century. • Background to study of the Renaissance-Reformation in Europe. Unit objectives Upon completing this unit, students will be able to: 1. Trace the spread of the Black Death and relate its spread to historical conditions in Afroeurasia in the fourteenth century. 2. Describe contemporary reactions to the Black Death and explain how social and cultural values, beliefs, and conditions influenced those reactions. 3. Analyze and appreciate the complexity of the causes and consequences of the Black Death. 4. Draw inferences from information on a map or in a primary source document. 5. Assess the reliability of primary sources as historical evidence. 6. Evaluate the historical significance of an event. http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu/ Page 2 World History for Us All Big Era 5 Closeup 5.5.1 Time and materials thorough treatment of the unit will take 120 to 240 minutes of class time. Because each Alesson stands on its own, however, teachers may choose to present only one or two lessons. No special materials are required. Authors he author is Anne Chapman, retired after teaching high school history for over thirty years. TShe has served as a history education consultant to the College Board, the Educational Testing Service, and the National Center for History in the Schools. In the last decade, she has been a member of the National History Standards’ World History Task Force. She wrote Coping with Catastrophe: The Black Death of the 14th Century, Women At the Heart of War: 1939-1945, and Human Rights In the Making: The French and Haitian Revolutions for the National Center for History in the Schools. She has also edited a volume of World History: Primary Source Readings for West Publishing and has been a member of the World History for Us All team since 2001. David Vigilante, Associate Director of the National Center for History in the Schools, provided photo research. The historical context n the mid-fourteenth century, the plague pandemic first known as the Great Dying and later as I the Black Death arrived from Central Asia to afflict Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Carried by infected fleas that infested black rats, clothing, bedding, or human body hair, the plague appeared first in Europe and the Middle East in ports. Then it progressed quickly along rivers and roads into towns and cities, progressing more slowly into rural areas inland. Bubonic plague, the most common form of the disease, killed people in three to five days. It began with high fever climbing to 105 degrees, then it caused convulsions, vomiting, and agonizingly painful swellings. Those sores, or buboes, which gave their name to the disease, appeared in the lymph glands and could be the size of an egg or apple. Between two-thirds and four-fifths of those bitten by the fleas and infected by the disease died. The pneumonic form of the plague affected the lungs and could be transmitted directly from person to person by coughing, sneezing, or even breathing. This form was always fatal and could kill within a matter of hours. All in all, during the initial half-century or so of recurring outbreaks, about one-third to one-half of the population died in the areas that the plague reached. In crowded cities, the death toll was higher and dying was faster. For instance, in the Italian town of Pistoia (where population had already dropped significantly owing to the famines of the early fourteenth century), it is estimated that about two-thirds of the population died during the plague’s first occurrence in 1348. Three more waves of the plague afflicted the city before 1400. In the last of these, half the remaining population died. In the next half-century or so, the plague returned six more times. http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu/ Page 3 World History for Us All Big Era 5 Closeup 5.5.1 Medical knowledge at the time was helpless in the face of the disease. People did not agree on what caused it or on how to treat it. Many different explanations were put forward, drawing on both pre-existing beliefs and actual observations. The most widespread theories were God’s anger with sinful humanity, the malign influence of comets, the conjunction of planets, and the activities of demons and devils. Several learned authorities thought “tainted air” was the cause, since illness was known to be associated with rotting corpses, the reeking filth, and the fetid mists rising from swamps. Some argued that exposure to those people already sick, or to objects contaminated by contact with them, caused infection. At times, sheer human malice was blamed. Although many doctors, officials, and ordinary people admitted that nothing anyone did seemed to make a difference, people took a number of religious, magical, and practical measures to try to prevent or cure the plague. These ranged from religious rituals to strict enforcement of existing sanitary laws to control garbage and urban pollution; from burning the possessions of those who died of the infection to burning Jews, who could be handy scapegoats; from restrictions on travel to the use of magical talismans and spells; from bloodletting for the healthy to surgery on the buboes. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that two men, Alexandre Yersin and Kitasato Shibasaburo, independently discovered the bacillus that causes bubonic plague. Subsequently, Professor M. Ogata in Tokyo proved that fleas taken from infected rats carried the bacillus. Then, by observing bites on the legs of victims, in 1897 P. L. Simond proved that fleas transmitted the plague from sick rodents to the humans they bit. Development of antibiotics after World War II provided effective medication against the plague. The disease continues to occur in smaller-scale outbreaks in various parts of the world today. The plague bacillus remains alive and well among wild rodent populations in a number of places, including the western United States. It is still capable of infecting people. In some campgrounds and other public areas, signs warn people to stay away from squirrels or other rodents because these animals could be infected. Many features of fourteenth-century life encouraged the spread of the plague. Thatched roofs, wattle-and-daub walls, household trash, and straw on floors and in bedding provided nesting places and food for infected black rats and fleas. When sick rats died, the fleas that infested them looked for other hosts. Human bodies and woolen clothes, both unwashed, were comfortable habitats for fleas. Long-distance trade, Christian pilgrimages, the march of armies, and the custom of nobles and their households of moving from manor to manor were all ways that infected rats, fleas, and people carried the plague from place to place. Medieval towns and villages were crowded, and within houses whole families sometimes lived packed together in a small room, which they often shared with domestic animals. Although the plague killed both rich and poor, mortality among the latter was higher.